


Peace Near Moonlit Seas

by nihilistic_trout



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, One Shot, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, domestic hannigram
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26430610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nihilistic_trout/pseuds/nihilistic_trout
Summary: Two years after the fall, Will and Hannibal have finally found a place of peace on the coast of Argentina. One-shot.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 5
Kudos: 94





	Peace Near Moonlit Seas

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Hannigram fic and will likely be the only pure fluff piece I write for these two (because let's face, they're best when they're prickly and lethal) but the idea popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone, so here it is.
> 
> No beta. All mistakes are my own. This is one of the only things I have _ever_ written in the present tense. No idea why, it just felt right, but if there's tense shifting outside of Will's retrospective thoughts, that would be why. Feel free to point it out if it annoys you as much as it would me. I'd love to fix it :)
> 
> Enjoy!

After two years, six countries, and eight different cities, the stillness feels almost alien to Will. He had worried, at first, that life on the run was going to retain a painful level of indefinite literality for them. They’d fought their way out of the black Atlantic waters only to be tossed into a different sort of storm, one where the shore hadn’t been visible and every shift in direction had felt like stepping out into the void all over again. 

Will had kept his sanity in those early months by taking the odd job here and there, whatever he could find to keep himself busy and contribute, however meagerly, to their funds. For a while he'd felt like he was 16 again: directionless and unmoored, fresh out of his father's house with no idea what the hell he was doing and no plan except to make sure that he never had to go back. If it hadn't been for Hannibal’s steady presence and easy confidence in his own well-honed ability to disappear without a trace, Will wasn't sure where he might have ended up. Probably up in the Yukon somewhere with a pack of twenty dogs to keep him warm. That would have been how Jack found him, no doubt. All those dog food deliveries would have given him away in a heartbeat.

But here, in a small coastal village an hour away from Buenos Aires, he's finally starting to feel like himself again. 

His current job helps. There are enough local fishermen to keep him reasonably occupied and occasionally he even gets one of the tourist companies from the city in need of an extra hand. Of all the things he had willingly sacrificed to blood and steel and saltwater, the boat motor mechanic from New Orleans had remained intact, and hell if there wasn’t irony wrapped up in every layer of _that_.

Wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead, Will sets his wrench aside and studies the small motor he's been tinkering with for the past few days--a favor for one of their neighbors down the hill that he won't be charging for because he has more than learned the value of having a good rapport with the people around them. He’s fairly confident that he had found the problem and fixed it, but there is no way to know for sure until he can test it. 

He glances out the single window of the small shed. Steely evening light pierces through the last clouds of the storm front that had rolled in from the inlet earlier. From where he is, he can clearly see the small villa and the unassuming dark blue sedan parked in the gravel driveway. He had heard Hannibal come home about an hour ago, but he was used to Will staying out in the shed until dinner, so Will had decided to maintain his momentum. It had felt nice to be absorbed again in something so easy and familiar. Nice to have the _luxury_ of being absorbed. 

It has, however, left Will with particularly restless energy thrumming around inside his skull.

Pulling a heavy tarp over the boat motor, Will turns off the free-standing shop lights and grabs his discarded jacket from the stool by the door before stepping out into the evening air. A light breeze rolls up from the Rio de la Plata, thick and muzzy with brine. A year ago, or even a few months ago, they probably wouldn't have been able to stay here for long. Nightmares had plagued Will enough without the seaside air feeding the ghosts. But now he finds a unique comfort in it, like pressing at a bruise, the tender, vague ache a reminder that against all odds they’re still here, blood flowing, nerve-endings intact. 

Will locks the shed behind him, slips the keys into his pocket, and heads up the hill to the house. Warm buttery light spills out across the lawn from the back windows, the grass wet from the afternoon rain, and nearly black in the twilight. Habit has him scanning the treeline around the perimeter of their yard but for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t find anything and that feels _right_. 

He reaches the back door and slips quietly inside. Warmth wraps around him immediately, settling around his shoulders, and the familiar smells of seared meat and sauteed vegetables mingle with a variety of other odors that even now, after all this time, Will still can’t identify. He’d given up on trying after a while. Hannibal seemed to get some sort of pleasure out of the verbal presentation, the same way he had since the day Will had met him, and trying to sort it out for himself beforehand felt like taking something away from the whole ritual.

Toeing off his boots, Will kicks them into the cubby, hangs his jacket on the hook, then pads down the dark hallway. Nelli is stretched out in her normal place for the evening on the threshold of the kitchen, pushing her boundaries as much as she knows she can. Will had never minded where his dogs went in the house but apparently culinary artistry doesn’t account for the presence of animal hair. 

She lifts her head when she sees Will and her tail thumps once against the hardwood floor, nose twitching to catch his scent. Will crouches down and scratches between her ears. A familiar twinge yanks at the place behind his lungs and memories of a much more crowded floor back in Wolf Trap try to slot into place, but he pushes them away with weary practice and stands and turns towards the kitchen, propping his shoulder against the doorframe. 

Hannibal stands at the large sink on the other side of the room with the cutting board laid across one side of it, deftly cutting vegetables and shoving the refuse into the garbage disposal. With the water running and Pavarotti playing on low volume from the small Bluetooth speaker set on the windowsill, he probably hadn’t heard Will come in, might still not be aware of his presence considering how many smells are wafting through the room. It’s a rare thing for Will to catch him with his guard down, to watch him when he isn’t aware of the observation. For the first year or so it hadn’t happened at all, but then, it hadn’t really happened for either of them. Too much moving around, hovering on the edge of death or discovery, when paranoia had become the best defense they had, and irrational, sometimes premature decisions to pack everything they needed and disappear in the dead of night had been more necessary than either of them had ever cared to admit aloud. 

But here, in this place, it seems they have finally found a respite. It won’t last, he knows. It never does, but perhaps that is part of the reason these moments feel so strangely safe. They will be okay here until they aren’t and they will deal with that when it happens.

Will crosses the kitchen and brushes his fingers along the island's smooth butcher block countertop. It had been Will’s first project upon arrival. He’d presented it to Hannibal as a joke and a gift. The first had earned him Hannibal’s genuine surprise and laughter; the latter had been rewarded by a very thorough fucking on top of it, followed by dinner prep while Will caught his breath. 

God forbid dog hair find its way in, though.

The memory of it presses the warmth of their home deeper beneath Will’s skin and the ghosts that had been there a moment ago evaporate. He slips up behind Hannibal, clocking the slight tilt of his head that showcases his sudden awareness, and molds himself against his back. 

“Smells good,” he says, leaving that for Hannibal to interpret however he wants. 

Hannibal turns his head enough to give Will half of his smile. “It will be ready soon. Why don’t you go clean up?”

Will hums. It’s a reasonable enough suggestion and one he normally would take without hesitation. But an entire day spent fixing something has left him with the nagging craving to take something else apart. Or to be taken apart. Either way, there are few things more entertaining for that purpose than his husband. 

“What if I want to stay dirty?”

Hannibal pauses, a visible trace of surprise darting across his features in the upward twitch of his eyebrows and that strange, amused lilt that seems to pull at a dozen different places at once. “Perhaps a compromise, then? Go clean up now and after dinner, I will help you get dirty again.”

Will nuzzles at Hannibal’s hairline then drags his mouth across warm, smooth skin to pull the ridge of Hannibal’s ear in between his teeth. He bites down. The rhythmic _thunk-thunk-thunk_ of the knife on the cutting board falters and a small shiver runs through Hannibal’s spine, transmitting into Will’s body where they are pressed together. Hannibal shifts his weight subtly, an almost imperceptible motion that settles him deeper into Will’s embrace.

“Counter proposal,” Will says, and slides his fingers along the waistline of Hannibal’s pants, carefully pinching the fabric of his pristine shirt and working it free. “You come shower with me now. We eat. Then you help me get dirty later.”

Hannibal chuckles. “But _I_ am clean now.”

Will grins. “Are you?”

Sinking his teeth into the side of Hannibal’s neck, tasting him, distracting him, Will shoves his hands up beneath that crisp white shirt and smears engine oil across Hannibal’s back. The knife clatters into the sink and Hannibal arches into Will’s mouth at the same time that he fumbles one hand back in some half-hearted attempt to stop what’s already been done. Will grins against his throat and bears down harder, bites deeper, and pushes his hands up and around to drag his nails across Hannibal’s chest hard enough to leave welts. He knows how much pressure it takes now to mark him. Flattening his tongue against Hannibal’s pulse, he tastes the fevered bruise settling into place beneath his skin before he pulls away and looks down.

Thick, black smears of engine oil are just visible beneath the hem of Hannibal’s shirt that is hiked up around Will’s wrist. There is something primally satisfying in the sight of it, an echo of blood in moonlight. 

“There,” he says. “Now you need a shower.”

Hannibal lets out an amused huff of laughter. “Incorrigible today, are we?”

Will hums and kisses the nape of his neck. “Only today, huh? I’ll have to work on that.”

And there really is no time like the present. Will lets him go and rubs both hands up the back of Hannibal’s shirt, smearing black streaks into the fabric. He steps away just as Hannibal stiffens in shock, enjoying the second or so that he gets to admire his work before Hannibal twists in an effort to look over his shoulder, expression disbelieving and just slightly offended.

“What did you…?”

Will throws back his head and laughs. He leaves Hannibal standing alone in the kitchen and makes his way upstairs, strips, and climbs into the shower to let the hot water sluice the day’s work from his body. 

Hannibal joins him a few minutes later. Without saying a word, he presses Will up against the slick tile and bites at his shoulders, hastily lubed fingers already greedily wriggling into his ass. When Hannibal fucks him, it’s with vengeful slowness, penance for the ruined shirt, and the meticulously prepared dinner, only half-finished, now growing cold downstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> I know jack-all about Argentina but it's near the top of my list of places I'd like to visit. No idea if the Rio de la Plata actually smells like the ocean but for the sake of "poetry", I went with it (would love to know for sure, though, if anyone can tell me). Hopefully, nothing was too off and y'all enjoyed. Thanks for reading!


End file.
